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Thanksgiving is all about tradition… good and bad. In Chef Mia’s house we have the Dilemma of the Cranberries. Artist husband grew up on canned cranberry sauce and loves it like nobody’s business. He even claims it is an essential part of the Norman Rockwell painting. Chef Mia thinks otherwise. How to keep peace in the family? Compromise solution: Homemade Jellied Cranberry Sauce

What she came up with is a delicious compromise. A recipe catering to his tastes and still beautiful enough and made with simple fresh ingredients for her. Sometimes it’s time to adopt new traditions.

Place cranberry juice in a small bowl; sprinkle the gelatin over the surface of the juice and let sit for at least 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a deep saucepan, combine the cranberries, apple, orange zest & juice, and sugar. Bring to a boil; reduce the heat and simmer stirring often until the cranberries begin to pop about 5 minutes. Continue cooking an additional 3 to 5 minutes until the mixture begins to thicken. Turn off the heat and stir in the softened gelatin.

Transfer the berry mixture to a food mill and pass through the finest holes into a bowl. (Discard the solids in your compost) Transfer the berry mixture to a lightly oiled mold. Top with a piece of oiled plastic wrap placed directly on top of the jelly. Refrigerate until set, at least 4 hours. (Can be made several days ahead)

To unmold, dip briefly in a bowl of hot water. Using a spatula, press gently on one side of the jelly (placing the spatula between the side of the mold and the jelly) to release the vacuum seal. Then turn out onto a plate. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Dearest Readers, We are so very thankful for each and every one of you who have supported us all year. We love hearing from you and when you share with us. Please share your favorite dish with us here or on Facebook! We’d love to hear from you.

When company’s coming we pull out all the stops and make the creamiest and smoothest potatoes we know how! The secret is…our mashed potatoes aren’t mashed at all, but put through a ricer or food mill. Instead of a rustic mash the texture is smooth and perfect for making a “gravy lake” in the center. We know, we know, there are purists who will say you can’t call it mashed if it’s not mashed but potato puree sounds scary so we’ve agreed to call it an elegant mash!

Call them what you will, this is not the recipe to skimp on the fat and cream. This dish is all about the little details… The butter, crème fraîche, and heavy cream all play an important role in the richness and texture of the final dish. If you can’t find crème fraîche in your area you can substitute with a really good quality sour cream or full fat Fage plain yogurt.

Don’t forget to infuse the cream with the aromatics — it’s an extra step but adds depth to the flavors. And, pop the drained potatoes back into the hot pot for at least 30 seconds to dry out the potatoes which makes them even fluffier.

Watch for the tip at the end of the video on how to keep the potatoes warm — it’s worth the price of admission we promise! Happy Start-to-the-Holiday Season!

Crème Fraîche Mashed Potatoes

Serves 4

2 pounds (about 3 large) russet potatoes

Handful of kosher salt

½ cup heavy whipping cream

4 to 5 peppercorns

1 bay leaf

1 clove garlic, peeled and mashed

½ stick unsalted butter, cubed and room temperature

½ cup crème fraîche

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Peel and cut the potatoes into quarters and place in a large saucepan. Cover the potatoes with at least an inch of cold water. Add the salt and bring the potatoes to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer potatoes until tender when pierced with a knife, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium heat with peppercorns, bay leaf, and garlic to a simmer. Remove from heat, cover and set aside.

Drain the potatoes in a colander and return potatoes to the pot to allow the potatoes to dry.Process the potatoes through a food mill or ricer. Toss in the butter to the hot potatoes as you work. Fold in the crème fraîche and heavy cream and gently fold until the potatoes are thick and creamy. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and freshly ground pepper.

When the fall weather turns cool and crisp and the days get shorter and darker, we sometimes slip into a blue mood. We crave sunshine and brightness. A crisp, balanced salad with tangy-sweet fall flavors is just what the doctor ordered!

We developed this salad to celebrate the the flavors and textures we love — crunchy and aromatic fennel — honey-sweet persimmons — juicy-tart pomegranate seeds — earthy walnuts — and velvety mâche leaves, all tied together with a bright and tangy vinaigrette.

A composed salad is a salad in which each component is seasoned and dressed individually and then artfully arranged. It’s an excellent choice for a leisurely lunch. Take it to the the next level with some grilled shrimp or soft dollops of goat cheese and it becomes a quick and easy dinner.

The Dear Martini method of building the composed salad is also mirrored in our Bite-Sized Technique videos: you can actually watch a video for each component needed for this salad! Click on the blue links to jump to each technique video — we promise you’ll learn something awesome!

To make the vinaigrette: In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar, mustard, thyme, and shallot with a pinch of salt and pepper. Slowly whisk in olive oil and continue whisking until dressing is emulsified. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Just before you are ready to serve, season and dress with vinaigrette each of the salad ingredients in separate bowls and then arrange on a platter or individual plates.

Back in our days teaching at Draeger’s Cooking School, we bonded over our love for fennel. We used to joke that one day we would create a cooking class entitled, “I Love Fennel.” It was a silly idea, but it was certainly a class we would take ourselves.

Why do we love fennel so much? It’s versatile, available year round (we are so lucky to live in California), and it goes well with the California/Mediterranean style of cuisine we enjoy. We roast fennel with meats, shave it for salads, braise it or cook it in soups, and even throw it on the grill. It’s sweet, licorice flavor is subtle enough to compliment pork, chicken and fish and goes beautifully into hearty dishes like ratatouille, our Thanksgiving stuffing, or a comforting soup. When raw, it’s crunchy texture lends well to slaws and salads; in fact, one of our favorite salads of all is a simple combination of shaved fennel, shredded carrot and dried cranberries.

If you are new to fennel, we suggest you start off with this delicious soup. It’s a hearty soup perfect for cooler months and we hope will inspire you to add fennel to your other favorite recipes.

Be sure to click on the blue links to watch our bite-sized technique videos. And let us know what you think!

In a medium-sized soup pot, heat the olive oil over medium flame and add the onion, carrot, celery, fennel and garlic. Season with salt and pepper and toss around to coat with oil. Cover and let the vegetable become soft and tender, but not browned, for about 7 minutes. Stir occasionally. Uncover and add the pepper flakes and beans and toss to coat. Cook until the beans are hot, about 2 more minutes. Pour in the stock and bring to a boil.

Lower the heat to simmer and add the Parmigiano rind, if using. Simmer for 15 minutes, covered. Uncover and add the kale. Stir to combine the ingredients and simmer, covered, for another 8 minutes, or until the kale is soft and tender. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if needed.

What’s the secret to making the ultimate ch-ch-ch-cherry pie? Use fresh sweet summer cherries. Some folks think you need sour cherries (which we seldom find fresh and are usually packed in syrup) to make a good cherry pie, but we think you’re missing out on some really great pies by sticking with canned cherries. When cherries are in season we use whatever looks the best at the market– everything from Bing to Queen Ann cherries.

No one wants to spend their 4th of July in the kitchen, so here are a couple of ways to make it easier:

Make the dough as early as tomorrow and refrigerate tightly wrapped in plastic wrap. While the dough rests in the fridge the water is absorbed in the dough and the butter firms up. A properly rested and chilled dough relaxes, making it easier to roll out.

Buy an inexpensive cherry pitter. A cherry pitter makes the process go much faster! If the thought of pitting fresh cherries makes you want to poke your eye out, you can use pitted frozen cherries or bottled cherries (which are great for pie making during the winter as well.) Thaw the cherries completely and use no more than about 1/4 cup of the collected juice.

Roll out half the pie dough on a lightly floured work surface with a floured rolling pin into a 12-inch round. Brush off excess flour; roll dough around rolling pin, and place it over your prepared pie pan. Press the dough into the pan and trim the edges so that the dough hangs over the pie pan by about 1-inch. Refrigerate while you make the filling.

In a large bowl, add the cherries, sugar, salt, almond, kirsch, lemon juice, and cornstarch. Toss the filling ingredients with the cherries until coated . Set cherries aside while you roll out the top dough.

Roll out the remaining dough to a 12-inch diameter circle. With a pastry cutter or a knife cut at least eighteen 1/2 -inch strips. Place strips on a parchment lined sheet pan and refrigerate. Cut out stars or decorations using a cookie cutter from the remaining dough scraps and refrigerate.

Spoon cherry filling into the pie shell. Dot with butter.

Lay strips horizontally across the pie and give the pie a quarter turn. Fold back every other strip starting with the first strip. Place a strip horizontally next to the folded strips and unfold the folded strips. Repeat the process starting with the 2nd strip folding back every other strip. Repeat folding, adding strips, and unfolding strips to weave a lattice pattern. Trim the lattice and fold the edge under or over and crimp the edge. Refrigerate the pie for 30 minutes.

In a small bowl whisk the egg and cream together to make an egg wash. Brush pie with egg wash and bake for 15 minutes at 425°F. Reduce heat to 350°F and bake approximately 35 to 45 minutes more until crust is golden brown and filling bubbles. Remove pie from the oven and cool COMPLETELY (at least 2 hours) before serving. Serve with pie with a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.

Place the flour in a large mixing bowl, add the chilled butter and toss to coat the butter with flour. Quickly rub the butter with the flour between your fingers to make flat pieces of butter. Take care not to overwork the butter – you want to work each piece, but should still have pea-sized lumps of the butter in the flour. Sprinkle in the salt and sugar and toss with your fingers to mix. Add the water and using a plastic scraper and a quick a folding motion, mix the dough just until it begins to clump together. The dough will look sandy and lumpy at this point and that’s okay.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface dusted with flour and gently pat out the dough into a flat disk about an 1-inch thick. Fold the dough in on itself until the dough just begins to hold together and is no longer sandy on the edges. Once the dough begins to come together, fold dough in half, turn it a quarter-turn and pat it out flat again to an inch thick. Repeat this process 4 to 5 more times. Butter will still be visible in the dough — it’s these pieces of butter that result in a flaky dough! Divide the dough in half and flatten each piece into a disk one more time and wrap them in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to an hour before rolling out.

Healthy Eating is a SNAP! We are proud to partner with the San Mateo County Fair to show how easy it can be to eat healthy. Check out the video and then head on over to the fair website to see what’s happening at the fair: http://www.sanmateocountyfair.com/

Never been to a fair? Here’s what you can expect: Pig races (need we say more?), petting zoo, homegrown exhibits and demos, live music– there is something for everyone!

Be sure to stop by and say hi to Chef Terri (she’s the social media maven for the fair) and Chef Mia who will be demoing and sharing some delicious recipes in the Culinary Arts building:

Mmmmm, Our Favorite Roast Chicken Dinner has crispy skin, tender and moist meat, with plenty of roasted vegetables to go along with it. Sound delicious so far? But, who has time to wait for a chicken to roast ? Enter the Rock Cornish game hen!

Game hens are just the right size for two servings and small enough that you can roast 2 of them easily in an average-size roasting pan. To speed up the roasting time the first thing we do is spatchcock the hen. Yep spatchcock, a word that can bring about raised eyebrows, sideways looks or even stifled giggles. Spatchcock is the technique of removing the backbone from a chicken and flattening it like a book.

Spatchcock’s etymology is believed to have originated in Ireland, where “dispatching the cock” was the phrase used to describe having to cook the bird by taking its spine out and laying it flat to cook. One can only deduce that the abbreviated “spatch” and “cock” were married together to form a new word.

Why in the world would anyone spatchcock a bird? The answer is simple: THE BIRD COOKS FASTER! The bird will cook faster and more evenly if it’s relatively the same thickness — of course, some parts of the bird are thicker than others; but imagine how long you normally wait for the bird to cook all the way through when you roast it whole. Spatchcocking works great on all poultry — game hens, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese…

Flattening the bird creates more surface area – which results in more crispy skin and a bird that’s well seasoned on both sides.

The Benefits:

Cooks faster than a trussed up whole bird

Cooks more evenly – more crispy skin!

Allows more room in the oven to roast other side dishes like vegetables and potatoes

The spine and wing tips can be placed in a large ziplock bag and tossed into the freezer. Collect enough and you’ve got the makings for some awesome chicken stock.

Once the bird is spatchcocked, you can then proceed to either roast it in the oven, grill it over your outdoor grill or press it in your panini machine (see: http://paninihappy.com/spatchcock-game-hen/ Our good friend and author of Panini Happy wrote a blog post about this method a few months back).

We enjoy placing the bird directly on top of some potatoes or other root vegetables — killing 2 birds with one stone (so to speak). As the bird roasts, the vegetables are seasoned and flavored with the juices and get crispy at the bottom of the pan. It’s totally a win-win! Believe us: once you’ve spatchcocked, you’ll never go back!

Our Favorite Roast Chicken

Serves 2

Plan ahead to spatchcock and season the bird overnight or the morning before you plan to roast the bird. This allows time for the seasoning to really penetrate and the salt to do it’s magic and tenderize the meat. For crispy skin don’t cover the seasoned bird with plastic wrap… refrigerating the hen uncovered will allow the skin to dry out. If you’re a crispy skin fanatic (like we are) wait to oil the bird until just before you roast it too!

1 Cornish Game Hen (defrosted if frozen)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2-3 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil

6 red potatoes, halved

Special equipment: Poultry shears

Preheat the oven to 400℉.

On a cutting board, place the hen breast-side down. Use the poultry shears to cut along one side of the backbone from the tail to the neck. Cut along the other side and remove the backbone. Set aside. Open up the hen and flip it back over so it’s breast-side up again. Use your palms to press down on the breast bone to flatten. Use the poultry shears to snip off the wing tips at the joint. Set it aside with the backbone for making stock later.

Sprinkle the hen with salt and pepper and rub all over both sides with vegetable oil. Rest bird at room temperature for 20 minutes or refrigerate overnight uncovered.

Arrange the halved potatoes in the bottom of a shallow pan large enough to hold the hen and potatoes; season with salt, pepper, and drizzle with oil. Transfer the hen to the pan and place it directly on top of the potatoes. Roast for 45 minutes, rotating once during cooking. The internal cooked temperature of the bird should be 165℉ when an instant-read thermometer is inserted into the thickest part of the breast. Remove from the oven and let the bird rest, tented with foil for 5-10 minutes.

To serve, cut the bird in half, lengthwise and serve each person a half. Divide the potatoes and garnish with a mojo verde sauce or gremolata.

Cook’s Notes:

You can muscle through spatchcocking with ordinary scissors or a knife, but it’s a whole lot easier with an inexpensive pair of poultry shears.

Be careful not to overcook the bird…. we usually take an internal temperature after 30 minutes to determine how far along we are in the roasting process.

The potatoes should be done at the same time as the chicken, but the potatoes underneath the bird won’t have browned. Remove the bird from the oven to rest and leave the potatoes in for an additional 5-10 minutes.